London Review Podcasts

As the siege on Gaza intensifies, many observers are describing the current Hamas-Israel conflict as a complete overhaul of the region’s status quo. Amjad Iraqi, a senior editor at +972 Magazine, and Michael Sfard, a leading human rights lawyer, join Adam Shatz to discuss the roots and ramifications of the current crisis. This conversation was recorded on 17 October.Find further reading on the episode page: lrb.me/waringazapod Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Crass, violent, misogynistic, dumb, fake – and irresistible. Tom Crewe was one of many unlikely diehards who fell sway to the theatre of pro-wrestling, despite and because of its excesses. Here, he reads his 2021 piece unpacking his youthful obsession with a sport both ‘hideous’ and ‘Homeric’.Find further reading on the episode page: lrb.me/wrestlingdaysSubscribe to Close Readings:In Apple Podcasts: https://apple.co/3pJoFPqIn other podcast apps: lrb.me/closereadings Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Between 1630 and 1944, Mount Vesuvius was continually erupting, and remains one of the world’s most dangerous volcanoes. Yet, as Rosemary Hill explains in a recent piece, the volcano exerted an irresistible pull on poets, tourists and statesmen. She tells Tom how the 19th century’s obsession with Vesuvius spawned scientific disciplines, artistic innovations and nude intracrater picnics.Further reading and listening on the episode page: lrb.me/intothevolcanoListen to Rosemary’s recent series on Stonehenge: lrb.me/stonehengepodoneSign up to our Close Readings podcast:In Apple Podcasts: https://apple.co/3pJoFPqIn other podcast apps: lrb.me/closereadings Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

For many on the right, Arif Naqvi epitomises the idea of the 'woke capitalist'. The private equity multimillionaire has promoted sustainable development and donated heavily to the Gates Foundation to invest in healthcare, but now awaits possible extradition to the US on fraud charges. Laleh Khalili joins Tom to discuss Naqvi’s story, and what goes wrong when private equity firms look to profit from public services.Read Laleh's piece here: https://lrb.me/khalilipod2Sign up to our Close Readings podcast:In Apple Podcasts: https://apple.co/3pJoFPqIn other podcast apps: lrb.me/closereadings Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In a world where communication is only as effective as its ‘truthiness’, numbers are vital to political success. But, as John Lanchester explains on this week’s episode, some of the most influential stats in UK politics are ‘pants’. John joins Tom to discuss why GDP, immigration numbers and English Premier League odds are so frequently misleading, and how we can be better attuned to the misuse of data.Find further reading on the episode page: lrb.me/thinkofanumberSubscribe to Close Readings:In Apple Podcasts: https://apple.co/3pJoFPqIn other podcast apps: lrb.me/closereadings Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Adolfo Kaminsky, a first-class forger while still a teenager, saved thousands of lives as an agent of the French Resistance. After the war, he turned his counterfeiting skills towards anticolonialist causes while building his reputation as a photographer. In this episode of the LRB podcast, Adam Shatz reads his piece on Kaminsky, whom he met in 2019. 'Forgery wasn‘t just an art he perfected,' Shatz writes, 'but a vocation and an ethics.'Find more by Adam Shatz at the episode page: lrb.me/beyondbordersSubscribe to Close Readings:In Apple Podcasts: https://apple.co/3pJoFPqIn other podcast apps: lrb.me/closereadings Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Armed with Thom’s Directory, James Joyce strove to recreate 1904 Dublin as accurately as possible, down to the last solicitor and street railing. But, as Colm Tóibín explains in a recent piece, the novel is pockmarked with errors, only some intentional. Colm joins Tom to discuss Joyce’s deliberate and accidental mistakes, Trieste’s essential influence on the novel, and why a queer reading of Ulysses really does hold water.Find further reading on the episode page: lrb.me/factcheckingjoyceSubscribe to Close Readings:In Apple Podcasts: https://apple.co/3pJoFPqIn other podcast apps: lrb.me/closereadings Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

‘Octopuses,’ Amia Srinivasan writes, ‘are the closest we can come, on earth, to knowing what it might be like to encounter intelligent aliens.’ In our third summer reading, Srinivasan explores the paradoxical nature of octopus lives, and the difficulties humans have in understanding them.Read more by Amia Srinivasan in the LRB: lrb.me/srinivasanpodLet us know your thoughts: lrb.me/podsurveyProduced by Zoe Kilbourn; editing by Sarah SahimSubscribe to Close Readings:In Apple Podcasts: https://apple.co/3pJoFPqIn other podcast apps: lrb.me/closereadings Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Agatha Christie, writes John Lanchester, ‘is the only writer by whom I’ve read more than fifty books. So – why?’ In the second of our summer readings, Lanchester dissects Christie’s compulsive readability, and considers why, despite her brazen lack of style, she was a great experimental formalist.Read more John Lanchester in the LRB: lrb.me/lanchesterpodLet us know your thoughts: lrb.me/podsurveyProduced by Zoe Kilbourn; editing by Sarah SahimSubscribe to Close Readings:In Apple Podcasts: https://apple.co/3pJoFPqIn other podcast apps: lrb.me/closereadings Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In the first of our summer readings, Terry Castle reads her 2005 piece about her “on-again, off-again, semi-friendship” with Susan Sontag. She remembers Sontag as a “great comic character”: a high-minded hobnobber, a moralist and a gossip, seductive and snobbish and a catalytic force for modern feminism.Read more Terry Castle in the LRB: lrb.me/castlepodLet us know your thoughts: lrb.me/podsurveyProduced by Zoe Kilbourn; editing by Sarah SahimSubscribe to Close Readings:In Apple Podcasts: https://apple.co/3pJoFPqIn other podcast apps: lrb.me/closereadings Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Almost eighteen months since Russia invaded Ukraine, Kyiv residents have resumed something resembling pre-war life. James Meek recently returned to the city, and joins Tom to discuss the new normal: how language is changing and ravers are rebuilding destroyed villages, and what we can expect in the coming months of warfare.Find further reading, and an example of Repair Together in action, on the episode page: lrb.me/lifeinkyivLet us know what you think via our survey: lrb.me/podsurveySubscribe to Close Readings:In Apple Podcasts: https://apple.co/3pJoFPqIn other podcast apps: lrb.me/closereadings Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Irina Dumitrescu joins Tom for a Close Readings fusion episode looking at Chaucer’s classical mind, and in particular his use of Ovid’s Heroides in The Legend of Good Women, in which the poet does penance for his poor depictions of women by retelling the stories of Ariadne, Phaedra, Lucrece and others in a more sympathetic light. They discuss Chaucer’s playful attitude to his sources and his mix of humour with serious observations on the presentation of women and their suffering in the classical tradition.Subscribe to Close Readings:In Apple Podcasts: https://apple.co/3pJoFPqIn other podcast apps: lrb.me/closereadings Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

As Director of the FBI, J. Edgar Hoover exercised a dictatorial influence over the department – and, it seems, everyone else. Meticulous and vindictive, he frequently weaponised secrets while carefully guarding his own. Deborah Friedell grapples with his overwhelming and disturbing legacy in her sweeping review of G-Man, the first Hoover biography in thirty years. She joins Tom to discuss some of the most puzzling features of Hoover’s personality and approach to policing. Should he have known about Pearl Harbor? Was he in cahoots with the Mafia? And what was his problem with bald men?Find further reading on the episode page: lrb.me/hooverpodSubscribe to Close Readings:Directly in Apple Podcasts here: https://apple.co/3pJoFPqIn other podcast apps here: lrb.me/closereadings Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In her recent piece for the paper, Patricia Lockwood revisits David Foster Wallace’s work in the light of posthumous publications and the shadow of #MeToo. Lockwood joined Joanne O’Leary, an editor at the paper, to discuss Wallace’s troubled status as Saint Dave, where his writing was at its best and whether a novel can benefit from being left unfinished.Find further reading on the episode page: lrb.me/dfwpodSubscribe to Close Readings:Directly in Apple Podcasts here: https://apple.co/3pJoFPqIn other podcast apps here: lrb.me/closereadings Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

As inflation continues to outstrip wage growth for all but the top ten per cent of earners, interest rates look set to keep rising at least until February 2024. The political economist William Davies joins Tom to consider the reasons for high inflation and the Bank of England’s response, what government policies could alleviate the crisis and whether next year’s general election will lead to any significant change.Find further reading on the episode page: lrb.me/inflationfixationSubscribe to Close Readings:Directly in Apple Podcasts here: https://apple.co/3pJoFPqIn other podcast apps here: lrb.me/closereadings Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Last month, the UK government appointed their first “free speech tsar”, whose stated mission is to protect free speech and academic freedom in universities. But, as Amia Srinivasan argues in a recent article, there's an inherent conflict in those goals. Amia joins Malin to discuss the Higher Education (Freedom of Speech) act, whether students are increasingly leaning left and how activists across the political spectrum weaponise the concept of harm.Find further reading on the episode page: lrb.me/cancelledSubscribe to Close Readings:Directly in Apple Podcasts here: https://apple.co/3pJoFPqIn other podcast apps here: lrb.me/closereadings Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

For her final leg across Salisbury Plain, Rosemary Hill is joined by folklorist Jeremy Harte to look at the many groups and stories that have emerged throughout the 20th century to challenge the narratives about Stonehenge presented by archaeologists. From astro-archaeology to the Earth Mysteries Movement, they look out how colonial models of Stonehenge’s history have been overturned and the whole notion of public ownership repeatedly tested, sometimes with violent consequences, since the stone circle was gifted to the nation in 1918, and why it (almost) always comes back to druids.Buy Rosemary Hill's book Stonehenge: lrb.me/stonehengebook Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

For the third episode in her short series on Stonehenge, Rosemary Hill is joined by Seamus Perry to experience the stone circle through the mind and eyes of a Romantic, with the likes of Wordsworth, Blake, Turner and Constable. For these poets and artists, Salisbury Plain took on a gloomy and richly psychological presence, lit with intense personal and political drama, and animated with revolutionary thought.Buy Rosemary Hill's book Stonehenge from the LRB Bookshop here: lrb.me/stonehengebookSign up to the LRB's Close Readings podcast here: lrb.me/closereadingspod Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Kevin Okoth and Jeremy Harding join Tom to discuss two recent books reassessing decolonisation. Textbook histories used to describe African independence as more or less complete by the mid-1960s, but millions of people were fighting white minority rule into the 1970s and 1980s, while Cold War rivalry between the US, the Soviet Union and China played out across the continent, often with catastrophic consequences. As countries continue to vie for Africa’s natural resources, its postcolonial future remains, at best, unresolved.Find further reading, and listen ad-free, on the LRB website: lrb.me/africascoldwarpodSign up to the LRB's Close Readings podcast here: lrb.me/closereadingspod Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In the second episode of her short series looking at why Stonehenge has occupied such an important place in the story of Britain, Rosemary Hill talks to Kate Bennett about the two antiquarians, John Aubrey and William Stukeley, who first treated the stone circle as a material object whose secrets could be revealed through careful measurement, observation and comparison, and so pioneered many of the practices of modern archaeology.Find further reading on the LRB website: lrb.me/stonehengepodtwoSign up to the LRB's Close Readings subscription here: lrb.me/closereadings Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.